All this commotion about the sale of the TR domain for $1 and to a non-Singaporean businesswoman is becoming somewhat distracting.

They are NOT after the domain name. Ulimately they are after the owners/editors of this website, no matter what it is called.

That earlier episode with Dr Ong and the ‘good’ name of TH was a smokescreen. The aim was twofold:

(a) to strike at the popularity of TR, as in, if TR uses another name its hits go down and it dies a natural death,

(b) to find out who are the editors/owners of TR.

They are ALREADY using Temasek Report for their annual report as of this year. This name is in fact a better title for this document. It is reasonable to surmise they will continue to call it Temasek Report.

They have ALREADY registered the name TR as their trademark, so they have the right to use it for whatever product/service/item in, of or about their company. If another entity uses their trademark for a similar product /service / item they can sue the unauthorised user of their trademark.

They cant sue TR website because this is a totally unrelated product / service / item and there is no confusion among the public. SPH itself calls this a socio-political website, an acknowledgement by them of what TR is about.

Neither does TR have any malicious intent toward TH’s business in what it is doing. They may accuse TR of “vicious falsehoods” but as far as I can tell, most of TR’s articles are based on data and statistics taken from Singapore govt sources. If they really want to do this, they have to arrest and charge you and for this they need to know your identity.

But they did not register the domain name. For domains, whoever registers first is the owner, too bad for TH. If anybody wants your domain, they have to buy it from you. The other way they can take it from you is to prove in a court of law that you are, as reader FE2 have said [using the name in bad faith—for example, holding it for the purpose of selling it, blocking the legitimate owner from using it, or attracting customers through deception.]

Still, ownership of the domain is not what they want. Their target is the website itself, its socio-political content.

They tried to seriously dent TR’s popularity. Didnt work. They are still going after Dr Ong to try and suss out TR’s owners. If this doesnt succeed, they will take it to the next level. At some point, they will resort to drastic action – they can and will cut off access to this website.